[Konohagakure — Hokage Tower Plaza, November 12th, 5:50 PM]
Three days after Jiraiya left.
The scroll announced category fifteen at sundown with no preamble and no ceremony, the way it announced things it had been waiting to say for a while.
"Category fifteen. Most Likely to Come Back."
The plaza went very still.
Then the chat did what it always did when a category landed in the specific place where hope lived — it started talking all at once, in the chaotic, overlapping way of people who weren't sure whether to be afraid of something or grateful for it.
Naruto: Oh.
Sakura: This one is different.
Sasuke: Different how.
Sakura: Every category has been about something that happened. This one is about something that hasn't happened yet.
Kakashi: Or has. The scroll's definition of "come back" is broader than ours.
Naruto: Is it? Come back from what?
Kakashi: From wherever. Death. Distance. Decisions.
Naruto: ...
Naruto: Oh. Yeah. Yeah that's different.
Madara: Hmph. Interesting category. I will note for the record that I have come back from death twice and I expect that to be acknowledged.
Tobirama: You came back from death once via Hashirama's cells and once via Edo Tensei, neither of which were your own accomplishment.
Madara: The AUDACITY of —
Hashirama: BOYS.
Madara: WHAT.
Hashirama: Let's watch the ranking.
Madara: I am going to —
Hashirama: Madara.
Madara: ...watching.
The ranking opened.
TENTH through SEVENTH moved quickly — a Kumo shinobi who had been declared dead in a border conflict and walked back into the village eight months later with a very long explanation. A Rain civilian who had left the village during the civil war and returned when Nagato's influence ended. A Mist jonin who had defected and come home. Each placement was specific and clean, the scroll's citations economical and warm.
At SIXTH PLACE, the plaza noticed the pattern changing.
The portrait was Gaara.
"Gaara of the Hidden Sand. Ranked sixth for coming back from a version of himself that had no room for other people, arriving at a version that does, and treating the distance between those two states as something that required continuous daily work rather than a single heroic act."
Temari in the Sand delegation made the sound she always made at Gaara-related scroll content, which was the sound of someone who has been trained not to cry in public circumstances encountering the limits of that training.
Kankuro put his arm around her.
She did not tell him to move it.
Gaara: I'm watching the ranking.
Naruto: Gaara.
Gaara: Naruto.
Naruto: You made it back.
Gaara: We both did.
Naruto: Yeah.
Gaara: Stop being sincere in the chat. It's embarrassing for everyone.
Naruto: YOU STARTED IT.
FIFTH PLACE.
Sasuke.
He received it with the stillness he had been developing since the heartbreaking decisions category — the stillness of someone who had been receiving difficult true things for a month and had gotten, if not comfortable with it, at least practiced.
"Uchiha Sasuke. Ranked fifth for coming back from a story he had been writing since he was seven years old, arriving at a different one, and beginning it from the beginning."
Sakura: Sasuke.
Sasuke: I see it.
Sakura: Are you okay?
Sasuke: ...Yes.
Sakura: Okay.
Sasuke: Thank you for asking directly.
Sakura: I learned from the best.
Sasuke: That's irritating.
Sakura: I know.
Naruto looked at Sasuke beside him. Sasuke was looking at the portrait with the expression of a person receiving something accurately described. Naruto did not say anything. He had learned, specifically from Itachi, that some moments wanted presence and not comment.
He stood beside him. That was all.
FOURTH PLACE.
The Konoha delegation, which had been absorbing each placement with the steady composure of people who had been through a month of this, went quiet in a different way at fourth place.
A different quality of quiet.
The portrait formed slowly.
"Uchiha Obito. Ranked fourth for the distance between who he was at thirteen — a boy who gave his eye to his friend without hesitation — and who he became, and the fact that the distance did not close permanently. He is coming back still. The scroll ranks the trajectory, not the destination."
Obito was silent in the chat for a full minute.
Then: I'm still going.
Kakashi: I know.
Obito: I didn't expect to be on this list.
Kakashi: The scroll doesn't rank what you expect.
Obito: No.
Kakashi: Fourth place.
Obito: Yeah.
Kakashi: Keep going.
Obito: ...Yeah. I will.
THIRD.
Nagato.
The citation was brief — briefer than the others, as if the scroll understood that some things were better said small. "For coming back to himself at the end, after years of choosing otherwise. The scroll notes that the last choice is still a choice."
Jiraiya's chat indicator was active. He had been reading from the field. He typed nothing. His green dot stayed on.
That was enough.
SECOND PLACE.
The scroll took longer than it usually took for second.
The crowd, which had been reading the pattern correctly since sixth place, did the new math.
Come back from death. Come back from distance. Come back from decisions.
Who was second?
The portrait formed.
The plaza recognized it and went the specific quiet it went when something was confirmed that everyone had been calculating but nobody had said out loud.
White hair. Yellow markings on the face. A coat that was not quite black and not quite grey. Eyes that had been away for a very long time and were in the process of finding their way back.
OROCHIMARU.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The chat typing indicators appeared and disappeared without resolving. All of them. Simultaneously. The specific digital equivalent of a village holding its breath.
The scroll said: "Orochimaru. Ranked second. The citation will be provided when the subject confirms their placement."
Complete silence.
The scroll added, quietly, in the tone it used when it was being precise about something important: "The subject has been notified."
Three hundred kilometers north of Konoha, in a teahouse at a crossroads, a man in a plain grey coat set down his cup of tea. He had received the scroll notification through a small pulse device he had been carrying since the ranking arc began. He read the placement. He read the citation clause.
He sat with it for a long time.
Then he looked at the door of the teahouse.
Outside, on the road, a familiar white-haired figure was walking toward the building from the south. Moving unhurried. Pack over one shoulder. One hand in his pocket. The other holding what appeared to be a rice ball, which he was examining with faint suspicion.
Orochimaru watched him come.
He thought: second place. They know I'm coming back before I've said so.
He thought: the scroll sees trajectories, not destinations.
He thought: the door is open.
He put down his cup. He straightened his coat. He looked at the door, at the road, at Jiraiya stepping off the road toward the teahouse entrance.
He thought: one cup.
That was all. One cup. Everything else could be worked out after.
The door opened.
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